Broadband News

BT Wholesale bandwidth in rural areas cheaper from July

BT Wholesale has informed service providers, that the contracted bandwidth
charges for its IPStream Connect (ADSL) service in Market 1 exchange areas will
be reduced in price from £104.25 per Mbps to £90.38 (plus VAT) from 1st July
2012.

This is a 13% reduction and is line with reductions required by Ofcom on a year per year basis.

Market 1 exchanges are generally the smaller more rural exchanges, with
customers often having only BT Wholesale based ADSL services available. The
reduction in price may be passed onto consumers, but with bandwidth consumption
increasing month on month it is very likely that providers will simply use the
reduction to fund better bandwidth provision for these exchanges.

Not sure how many use those, given the 21CN network is @ 80% and is cheaper to run.

andrew

over 5 years ago

We're on Market 1. some of us pay £25 a month for less than a meg, but it doesn't drop out. Some of us pay £6.99 and it grinds to a halt when the kids come home from school.
We pay through the nose for a very poor service, but that's the price we pay for being too far from the exchange. We have no cabinets, and even if they put adsl2+ in the exchange it wouldn't help us all. What is the solution? Relocate? Put up and shut up?

cyberdoyle

over 5 years ago

Plusnet talk of 20CN capacity separate to 21CN. OFCOM reckoned 90% of users were on IPStream connect which is why they only bothered with regulating that. So some services won't see a wholesale price reduction.

The market can't provide the service solution that customers want at the price bracket that the customer wants...

The solution is what you have B4RN has done...

It's simple economics CD, if "rural" area broadband was such a fertile market that provided good ROI there would be many solution providers. In fact another semi-commercial rural solution provider recently went bust, so the margins are non-existant to paper thin.

themanstan

over 5 years ago

The answer is in the question Chris - if it's crap at £6.99 and reliable at £25 you can choose where you want to be on that scale.

It isn't a big job to insert a cabinet in the network to provide a sub loop connection opportunity.

herdwick

over 5 years ago

And there lies the problem £25 per month is seen as "too expensive" as a product.

Perhaps if we were to go back to prices 10 years ago where it was £40-60 per month then a suffcient ROI could be got to stimulate investment.

undecidedadrian

over 5 years ago

I cant beleieve how high BT have got away with charging ro backhaul, £100 mbit is just sick.

chrysalis

over 5 years ago

If those numbers are annual, it explains why Sky Connect upto 8 megabit is £17/month (40GB usage), and why Sky have just LLU'd my mates village and now charge him £7.50/m for his 12 megabit (unlimited usage).

Only the comms industry could charge less for more when the big player (with all the capital assets) is removed from the equation!!

jchamier

over 5 years ago

@Chrysalis
But this highlights the lack of opportunity for for investing in new network to compete with BT. With all the fixed costs of maintaining a network, it should be easy to come in, undercut and outcompete BT if there was a sound business case with sufficient ROI... but there isn't.
And effectively, one needs to recapitalise the network for fibre. So the investment capital needed is huge, sic. B4RN ~£2m cost for connecting a little less than 3 thousand properties.

themanstan

over 5 years ago

£100 is easy to undercut however then it wouldnt be a market 1 exchange and so as such BT would drop their prices as well.